Naudé was born in 1984 in Cape Town, where he continues to live. He graduated with a BA Visual Arts from the University of Stellenbosch in 2007.

Naudé has had solo exhibitions at Stevenson Cape Town and Johannesburg (2011, 2010 and 2014) and showed selected photographs from Animal Farm in the print room at The Photographers' Gallery in London in 2013. Group shows include Chroma (Cape Town) and The Loom of the Land (Johannesburg), at Stevenson in 2014 and 2013; In Focus: Animaliaat the J Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (2015); Lyon Biennale, La vie modern (2015); Joseph Walsh, Johannes Nagel and Daniel Naudé atArtists House, New Art Centre, Wiltshire (2014);Apartheid and After at Huis Marseille, Amsterdam (2014); the Aardklop National Arts Festival, Potchefstroom (2012); Neither Man Nor Stone at the Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town (2012); Lagos Photo Festival, Nigeria (2011); Bamako Encounters African Photography Biennial, Mali (2011); Greatest Hits of 2007 at the AVA Gallery, Cape Town (2011); Breaking News: Contemporary photography from the Middle East and Africa, works from the collection of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, in Modena, Italy (2010); and PEEKABOO - Current South Africa at the Tennis Palace Art Museum, Helsinki (2010).

Naudé’s first book, Animal Farm, was published by Prestel in 2012, followed by Sightings of the Sacred: Cattle in India, Uganda and Madagascar in 2016, also by Prestel. Naudé took part in the Fall 2011 residency programme at Anderson Ranch in Aspen, Colorado.